


car accidents, coffee mugs, ballpoint pens (everything inbetween)

by pianophan



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Car Accidents, M/M, Sad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-27
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-15 08:10:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10552990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pianophan/pseuds/pianophan
Summary: in which former budding journalist daniel howell is selectively mute and phillip lester is the man taking his place at the newspaper. his first assignment? write an article about the three year anniversary of the crash that killed his brother, his mother, his loving fiance, and eventually his father.complicated? maybe. beautiful? definitely.





	

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> no1: dan thinks and makes himself a microwavable burrito. he nearly burns down his flat. phil thinks and almost stresses himself to pieces.

dan wasn't one to get out of bed at the crack of dawn. however he especially couldn't get out today.  
it's march first. not only was it too bright outside (however still cloudy , it is england) it was the beginning of the official month of sorrows. well, not official. the majority of the universe didn't count mos. in fact, what a surprise, only dan celebrated it.  
day one : kevin howell's birthday. or what would've been dan's father's fifty-sixth birthday .  
although the man was, in lack of better words, an absolute arsehole, he certainly didn't deserve to be buried six feet underground at least five years, probably more, before his time. and, okay, he killed himself from the inside and nearly killed dan with grief, but. you know. he was dan's father.

dan takes a hollow breath and separates himself from the pillow. his phone buzzes, and although he really should've blocked her or at least turned off the notifications, it's abigail. something about eating or remember, send something into the magazine.  
honestly, he doesn't get paid enough for this. (not true, he's lucky they kept him around.) his pieces are all decidedly gloomy, all blood and gore overlaid with a metaphor about the sea to keep things flowing. he snorts. sea - water - flowing. he almost considers texting a pun back to abby.

almost. and then he decides against it and pulls a sweatshirt on. he makes his way to the kitchenette, wood and fake tile. does the floor creak? yes. does he give a fuck? no.

his stars faded a long, long time ago and he's an agnostic in a church. rain is to london as pessimism is to dan. metaphors, similes, all of the above. 

his phone rings and it's abby. what a surprise, his best friend - calling him? wow.

"daniel, tell me you're out of bed." 

"i'm considering getting back in just to blackmail you to stop calling me daniel."

"he talks!"

"a march miracle." he deadpans. the line goes silent as abby backtracks. she's a year younger than him, but he might as well be a son of hers. he's voiced this, before today, and she responded with a snort and found a old school picture, framing it with a note of 'daniel cheng'.

"i might be going back home in a week or two. you're going to come because my parents love you, rachel idolizes you, and you need to get away from london." abigail's chinese-american, and hails from portland, oregon, somewhere in the western united states. he has no clue how she got to london.

"is rachel still taking that sign language class?"

they chat for a couple more minutes. dan's thinking that she might have stayed on the phone for a longer time because he actually talked. abby reminded him that he hadn't talked in three weeks. eventually, however, he hangs up and he sifts through the freezer and finds a microwavable burrito. he sets the timer and lies down on the couch.

minutes later, he wakes up to the sound of a smoke alarm.

the fact that he set it for twenty minutes instead of two will not help against abby's theory about dan trying to inadvertently kill himself.

-

phil manages to be at work at seven thirty. the tragedy of a good job. as a floater, he writes anything, and hhe's used to doing intern's work as that's exactly what he did up until this month, when colin quit, apparently outraged at being compared to the old floater.

they say that the former was brilliant, and that it's a shame,what happened to him and what he does now.

phil doesn't think it's a shame. he's read some of his work, dark essays or a cynical poem.

he may romanticize it a bit. but daniel howell is a writing genius. so, of course, he has to interview him. 

"you're a tad screwed, mate. interviewing the silent?" oliver states as he places a pile of dan's work on phil's worn desk. 

"not only that..i have to interview him about the...well."

"you can say crash. or accident. it's not a sin." it might as well be, with how the informer skirts around it. oliver walks away as phil leafs through the papers. some familiar, some not.

i visited manhattan today by daniel howell

i visited manhattan today and the bitter winds flashed by like my memories of you.  
i visited manhattan today and cried on an irrelevant stranger's stars  
i cried over the brick, over the beauty, over a tragedy pretentious fate set up.  
i cried over your dream, future manhattaner.

phil lays his head on the distressed wood. he's gotta start somewhere. so he types up an email to janey lawrence, his psych-major friend from university about depressing themes in writing.


End file.
